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March 2007

March 31, 2007

"El Guitarrero" is the story of an American poet in Mexico who is tormented by a guitar player. It is an episode of Escape that has aged poorly, and it seems that the only Latin American involved in this production was the actual guitar player, Jose Barroso. The Spanish spoken in this episode sounds similar to what I sound like in Spanish class, and the English has become dated.

The recording of this broadcast includes an interruption for a CBS news report from Freedom Village in Korea. For about three minutes, the names of the American soldiers involved in a prisoner of war exchange are announced. These few minutes are far more emotionally powerful than anything else in "El Guitarrero."

When we are returned to the story, the American poet and the Mexican guitarist are about to have drinks. From there it launches into a drama of hatred between the two. The question at the heart of this story asks, does the poet writing about love and pain really understand the emotions he writes about, or do the words just sound pretty? The guitarist thinks that the poet is only standing on the sidelines of life, watching. I won't ruin it for you by telling you what happens after that.

This isn't a bad episode but you may have to listen to it more than once, or have a shot of tequila, to figure it out. The guitar playing in the background is lovely.

"El Guitarrero" was written by E. Jack Neuman, who later went on to have a long career in television. Eddie Firestone Jr. starred as the poet. He went on to have a very successful career as a character actor in movies and television. The man who starred as the guitarist, Jack Kruschen, also had a successful career in movies and television. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1960 for his role in The Apartment.

March 27, 2007

If you need a reminder as to why it is you should never accept a ride from a stranger -- then "Drive-In" is for you! This episode belongs to a sub-genre of Suspense stories that are also cautionary tales. These dramas are still convincing because their warnings are still valid.

"Drive-In" was written for Suspense by Mel Dinelli and Muriel Ray Bolton. It was broadcast three times but Garland only appeared in the lead role once. Raymond Lewis played the driver. This version was heard on November 21, 1946.

March 25, 2007

Sixty years ago Escape broadcast its first episode,"Dead of Night," on March 21, 1947. A month earlier the story had been broadcast on the CBS series Out of this World with the same actors in the lead roles. When listening to Escape's original opening sequence, you will notice a similarity to the opening words of The Twilight Zone which came along about a decade later, also on CBS.

Escape's premier episode was based on one of the stories from the classic British horror film Dead of Night (1945). The movie is a collection of supernatural tales, including the urban legend of "The Phantom Coachman." Its most famous segment is about a ventriloquist named Maxwell Frere, played by Michael Redgrave, and Hugo, his dummy (pictured left). Dead of Night was also one of the inspirations for the famous Twilight Zone episode "The Dummy" in 1962. Richard Attenborough's 1978 film Magic also borrowed a little from this story.

March 18, 2007

The Suspense episode "The Hitchhiker" is well known because the radio play was transformed into a television episode, and it has since lived on in reruns. In this story, a supernatural hitchhiker follows the main character on a trip across the country.

Orson Welles, for whom the role was written, first performed "The Hitchhiker" on the CBS network's Mercury Theater on the Airin 1941,and then again on Suspense in 1942. The radio play was written by Lucille Fletcher, who also wrote Suspense's most famous episode, "Sorry, Wrong Number." (This episode also features her husband, legendary film-composer Bernard Herrmann, who composed and conducted the music.) In 1960, "The Hitch-Hiker" became an episode of the CBS television show, The Twilight Zone but with Inger Stevens in the lead role.

The radio version has chilling sound effects. Well, chilling or hokey. It depends on your point of view. Listen for the sound effects of the phone call made by Welles. The suspense builds as his call goes from operator to operator across the country, but it also shows how many people had to be involved just to make a phone call back then!

The original presentation of "The Hitchhiker" performed by Orson Welles and his Mercury Theateraired on November 17, 1941, but no recording of that broadcast is known to exist at this time. However, a 1946 version performed by Orson Welles for The Mercury Summer Theater is available below.

(Visit The Digital Deli Too for more information about the The Mercury Theater on the Air and its various name changes and program logs.)

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Many old radio shows have stories that include hitchhikers. Often, they play on the urban legends of "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" or "The Two Hitchhikers".

Here is an episode from the radio series The Clock (1946-1948) that is also called "The Hitchhiker". It is a spin on the urban legend where one of two hitchhikers is dangerous but appearances turn out to be deceiving.

March 12, 2007

You may have noticed that red velvet cake has become popular again. The story of the outrageously expensive recipe for this cake is an old urban legend. In recent decades, this legend was given new life when its subject was switched from cake to chocolate chip cookies and when it began to circulate via e-mail. The basic story involves a restaurant patron who asks for the recipe of a dessert without knowing that a hefty charge for it will be placed on their bill. This person consults with a lawyer and is told that there is no way to avoid paying.

According to Jan Harold Brunvand in The Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, this story is most often associated with a red velvet cake supposedly served at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City in the 1960's. In this version of the legend, the pricey secret to the cake was merely a large measurement of red food coloring added to a white cake mix. The angry purchaser of the recipe then distributes it freely out of revenge.

This legend transferred over to Mrs. Fields Cookies in the 1980's and most recently to Neiman Marcus as the "$250 cookie recipe". In response to the urban legend, Neiman Marcus posted a free cookie recipe on their website.

Unfortunately, neither Escape nor Suspense ever based an episode on this urban legend but the comedy series The Couple Next Door did. Their humorous version of this story is about a French chocolate cake and has an added twist where their lawyer adds insult to their injury.

March 09, 2007

The new movie Zodiac, the dramatization of the hunt for the killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1970’s, includes references to the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell (1924). It is available at classicshorts.com and many other sites.

"The Most Dangerous Game" was made into a movie in 1932 and many different versions were later done for radio and television. Both Escape and Suspense broadcast episodes based on this story but Escape's version was better because they excelled at exotic jungle tales like this one. Their version stays true to the original short story, the actors are convincing in their roles and they all have the appropriate accents.

Suspense's version of "The Most Dangerous Game", which takes a few liberties from the short story, stars Orson Welles as General Zaroff. Welles' drawn-out performance pulls a lot of attention away from the story and onto himself and there is also the baffling addition of a loud pet bird named Zhu-Zhu that Welles interacts with - a lot.

(P.S. In response to the comments posted about episode, it is true that Paul Frees and Orson Welles sound very similar! For clarity, Paul Frees starred as Sanger Rainsford in Escape's version of The Most Dangerous Game along with Hans Conried as Zaroff. Orson Welles starred as General Zaroff in Suspense's version along with Keenan Wynn as Rainsford. )

March 05, 2007

The ventriloquist/comedy act of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthywas a huge success during the "Golden Age of Radio" but ventriloquists and their dummies also made excellent fodder for radio thrillers and horror shows. The ventriloquists portrayed in these shows were often down on their luck, tortured souls working in seedy places -- a stark contrast to the perennially sunny Bergen & McCarthy Show.

(Bergen & McCarthy are pictured here from their appearance in the movie Stage Door Canteen in 1943. Bergen is the one in the turban.)

The Suspense episode "Flesh Peddler" follows a typical "haunted" ventriloquist plot but it remains interesting because of the casting.

This is an old radio show with two performers who are familiar to any Gen-Xer. It stars Deforest Kelly, whom we all know as Dr. McCoy onStar Trek, but it also has Daws Butler, who was the voice of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Elroy Jetson and numerous other cartoon characters. Anyone who watched cartoons in the 1970's will recognize his voice.

Deforest Kelly plays a booking agent who takes an interest in a ventriloquist act he finds at a carnival. Daws Butler provides the voice of Arthur, the slow-witted knife-thrower. It is unfortunate that they did not choose Butler to play the ventriloquist, given his enormous talent for providing character voices, but this was before he became famous for his work in cartoons.